I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing from iHeart Radio. Energy, charisma, fire and unmistakable hair. These are just a few of the words to describe the mesmerizing stage presence of Venezuelan conductor Raphael Piire. This is pi Are conducting Mahler's Symphony Number five with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. He first gained attention as the winner of
Denmark's twenty twelve Malco International Conducting Competition. Since then, the forty three year old has conducted many of the world's pre eminent orchestras, including London, Boston, Chicago, New York and la He was also principal conductor of the Castleton Festival in Virginia and led the Ulster Orchestra of Northern Ireland.
Piari has been the music director of the San Diego Symphony since twenty nineteen, and this is his first year as music director of the Montreal Symphony, positions he currently holds simultaneously. Piare's road to such prestige began at Venezuela's fabled El Sistema, a music education programme whose illustrious alumni include Gustavo Dudamel, the newly appointed music director of the New York Pho Harmonic. I wanted to know how El Systema began and how Pirai found his.
Way to it. Well, the Systema started this wonderful program that doctor jos Antonio Breok created in Venezuela back in nineteen seventy five. And the whole idea is that the music should be part of the education, and that music is a rite and not a privilege. So we should be able to access to music, and we have that.
One of the things of system is that actually you just go to one of the nucleus, so they call the nucleus all of these different you cannot say conservatory because there are some of them that they are mainly bare bones. So it depends, that's what we call them nucleus. It depends where the part of the city they are. And they give you the instrument, they will give you
the teachers. You just need to show up. But you start playing an instrument and at the same time you start playing in an orchestra, so you are always part of a bigger kind of community. So since the very beginning is that the let's say the unorthodox part that it's you already start playing your instrument and you immediately start playing in a symphony orchestra right away. So that that's the part that let's say it's not as normal and the rest of the world.
But it's not a music school like Curtis or Manness. It's not a school it's granting you a degree. It's more of an academy.
Well that's why they call it nucleus, because it's just you will not get a degree. Of course, then you could go to school and everything altogether, but it is actually a place that they will be teaching music. You just need to appear that they will give you the instrument, they will give you to the teachers, and you will start playing an orchestra. The idea is you don't have
to be under primages for everybody. But of course a big am is trying to be for the underprivileged people that they might be poor, and the whole idea is that somebody, just because it's poor, it should not have a poor education. So they always bring into a system of people from everywhere in the world, from Manhattan Music Juliar, Civeelious Academy, Berlin Pharamonic to try to go and teach until do master classes for any of the students there.
Now, you, when you were in your performing career, you played the French horn, correct, that is correct? And who chose the French horn? You or someone chose it for you?
Well, I think the French hole shows me somehow, because my brother, he was playing in the orchestra already. My brother is eight years my senior. He was playing a basoon. But you know, he did his things his room and I did mine. And then was one day I approached his room and he was listening to something and that caught my attention. He asked me, do you like I said yes, So he said, I'm going to take you to the orchestra tomorrow. And then I went there and
I started. Many months later, I found out that what he was listening was the eighteen twelve overture, and what caught my attention was the Marseilles theme, and it was the horn sound that caught my attention, and I went into this nuclear the conductor of the orchestra. He was not only the conductor of the orchestra, but also the teacher of trumpet, trombone, French horn and tuba. His name was Antoine Duhamel and he gave me this, yeah, you know, and he gave me this bronze, thin, brassy thing and
told me blow. I did and it sounds and that's how I started playing the French horn.
That's amazing, that's amazing. How long were you ad SYSTEMA? Oh?
Well, I like to say that I'm still part of it. I mean, yeah, we started since nineteen ninety four to this day pretty much. Yeah.
And from there do you go to a formal music school?
Yeah? In Caracas, do you get your instrument and you wanted to get better and better? Then I moved to Karracas because I was part of that generation when Gustavo was also part. We started with the National Child then Orchestra. Then it was the National Youth Orchestra, and then Cemon Bolivar Youth Orchestra and Simon Bolivar Orchestra. And in Karrakas we go to a proper university. But the thing was that because the orchestra was getting a lot of tours and a lot of things, so we kind of need
to do things a little bit differently. In my case, when I started conducting that there was a path that my strawberry will kind of opened the door for me. I got one on one classes, so I got all of the things. But instead of having a full semester and going every day, I just have very focused on immersion class of six seven hours one on one to try to get all of this because I had to keep, you know, rehearsing and doing things.
It sounds like the classical world is like college football. You know, they're going to help you get through your grades because you're such a great quarterback.
Something like that. A little bit.
Yeah, you're a great French horn player, so we're going to take care of everything for you. You just keep playing that horn. Now, you just keep loving those notes and we're going to take care of your grades.
Something like that. Yeah, you could say that, let's support it that way.
Yeah, but now when you're there, when you are at Simone Bolivar, you're playing principal horn for Simone Bolivar between two thousand and one and twenty twelve of your touring and you're recording, and you were around some of course these titans of the classical repertoire in terms of music directors. You're around Abado, who I worship I mean I worshiped no more than Abat Mozelle, who I worship. Rattle, I don't know, but I love it. Mensinopoli, of course, is
a great legend. And when you're around them, and when you're in that world and you're performing, when does someone tap you on the shoulder and say, come with me and they want to start to talk about you picking up a baton? Who first suggests that to you?
When? And where? Well? With him? The very first one that actually talked to me about it. It was actually my Strabreo. He was the very first one. I got very inspired by Giuseppe Sinopoli. He did a tour with the nationality An Orchestra and I just I mean, we were one hundred and fifty kids playing Riency overture from Wagner and he did not speak Spanish and then he
changed the sound of the orchestra within second. Now that really impressed me and said, I would like to do that one day when my hair is all white, you know, and all I will do that. But then with Maestro Antonio bre who showed me the path and started having this, and then at the same time Maestra Bado was coming, Mazelle was coming, Rattle was going into Venezuela, so I can't kind of look at the one on one thing. And at the same time, Gustava and I were very
good friends. Mustavo was already doing all of this conducting and I was I was his first home, so I was very supportive of him. Looking in the orchestra, okay, I make sure that the horn section is always going to be on top phone for the concerts with Gustavo, So it was kind of an organic thing to be going through. But at the same time, when I was sitting in the orchestra, it was like a college kind
of experience. I was just getting all of these things from all of these amazing conductors, and those words getting in my head somehow, all of the information how they work with the orchestra.
So the first time you step on a podium with a baton in your hand, or without one for that matter, is when.
The very first one. It could have been already with a brass enseamble because I was with a brass quintet and we used to teach kids. We go into different cities in the country, and we arrived on a Thursday, we play a concert, teach Friday, Saturday, and on Sunday, we put a little brass and sample together. So that was the first time that without a button I did something. And then for real in front of an orchestra I
think was around two thousand seven, I think too. It was the youth Orchestra of Marakaivo and it was a master class in conducting with the South Korean conductor Zunquak was dictating that and during that thing, he picked who was going to do which part of the concert, and he decided that I was going to actually close the master class with the last movement of Chaikovs the Fifth Symphony.
Now, just to get back to the horn for one second. Did it come naturally that French horn to you or was it something that you had to work extra hard on?
Well, the French horn, it's a very ungrateful instrument, and any ranch home player would agree with me. We love the instrument, but sometimes it just gets you butt to earth in the most unlikely places or moment when you thinker on the top of the world, you have a crack. But actually with the French one, I think that it was it was a wonderful instrument that it was very nice fitted for me and I always had that love, sometimes hate relationship, but mostly love.
Now I'm going to put the cards on the table here. I went to go see you, and then there at Carnegie Hall and my wife or someone said to me, what was Piari like on the podium? And I said, he had the athleticism of Dodomel and even yup because von Swaden is very very hopping around the podium, he's very active from the waist down, I said, PIORI reminds me of Dudemel from the waist down, and he reminds me of Dutois from the waist up. He's very elegant.
He's athletic and elegant at the same moment. At the same time, he's very very he's very very powerful, even convulsive what he wants to and then he's pulling it back dramatically and he's in complete control of his body there, and there's an exuberance and there's a spasmodic quality to his body only when needed. And then because I mean, I was to was my favorite, and I was friends with Charlie and Chantale, they were dear friends of mine.
And I watched you up there and I thought, is this your style, that this is what came out of you. Did you model yourself after somebody? Was somebody your inspiration?
No, not really, I think. I mean, I still don't know how I look like, and I don't like to look at bitio of me.
My god, that's terrible, but you should watch it because it's fabulous.
It's really facinally thank you, thank you for that. But in reality, no, I think that was one of the things that my mentor, Antonio Breo said, like, look, you just get enough information and the body will find its way to express itself what you wanted to do with music. I will not know what will be my style at all. I do have to say that, together with Gootabo, we used to watch videos of Carlos Kleiber and of course of Cloud or a Bado as well, because they're just amazing,
fantastic conductors. But no, I do not try to shape or do any kind of movement on purpose or conscious like. It's just what my body likes to do. It's like my hair, you know, it has a life on it's own. There's nothing I can do about it. Whenever it goes one way, it's like okay, fine, Well.
I was gonna say I think that they should rearrange the stage because it's tough to see some of the performers over your hair. They should change the seating plan.
I hope they've allowed.
I hope they have factored your hair and the height of your hair into the seating plan. But anyway, now, all these legends, I didn't meet all of them. I met Moselle when he was just leaving New York. Charlie, I knew Eschenbach. I mean, I met a bunch of these people. Barren Boym. You know, the contemporaries are the ones that are just cresting now into retirement. I met so many of them. And when I say that Charlie is my favorite, I should say he's among my favorites
because I love Mozelle as well. Now, you went to Castleton. I went down there and did a program. Did Linda is his wife? Absolutely so did Linda. Mizelle was gone, and she invited me to come down there to the Virginia countryside and do some program down there with one of her sons and try. I forget what it was. It was a kind of an odd little program, but I was very admiring of what she was doing. You went down there. How often? How many trips did you make to Castleton.
Well, it's started because the thing with Castleton Mozille. When I won the Malco competition into Soutum twelve males from Moselle was actually the chairman of the jury. And one of the things that it happened by winning the competition is that you were going to get a little bit like a tutor, kind of tutelage under Moselle. So I remember that. It was very funny because the night of the gala we did the final, I was announced that
I was the winner. It's already one in the morning, after the dner with this whole thing, and I had to catch a plane back to going back to Venezuela, and I was like, well, my flight is at six, so I need to go. Maestro, thank you very much for everything. It's like, no, no, no, you do not think that you're going to get rid of me that easily. You will come to now a Castleton on July. And on July seventh, I this is himself talking. I am going to conduct Beethoven nine and I want you to
open the concert and conduct Leonora number three. I will send you my escore and I'll see you there. I mean, you know, myself tells you that what you're going to do. Yeah, of course I went there and it was fantastic. The stayed over there and all of the program that he was putting on there together, it was amazing. I did that. I conduct his emity score. His score it has metrono
marking fingers and everything altogether. And there was a part of me that I was a little bit in shock because I thought, like he expect me to do all of his things in there or not, I don't know, and I will just I will go with my god feeling and I will do how I listen to this music. So I got his score, but I did my time post, I did my thing, and there was no complaint at all whatsoever. He actually was waiting for me there with the his aren't white open and treat me like I
was like his grandson or something. And he was so so supper loved the absolutely so, I mean all of those things that people might think that he was cold or whatever, that's they never really get to meeting. He was so so warm. And it was funny because what you'll hear me conduct in Carnelie Hall was mather Vive my first time in Castleton. We were talking. I said, do you love Maler's like yes, and do you do the fifth Infinite?
Yes?
Myself, this is one of my this is one of my pieces. Like, well, then you have to come next year and do malor fifth, which I did in two Sound thirteen, and then the year after that, in twenty fourteen, we were going to do a concert together, split concert, and I was due to travel there on a month they and he passed away on a Sunday.
Maestro Rafael Piire. If you enjoy conversations with gifted conductors, check out my episode with Pavo Jervy.
I have two girls right now who they're very talented, but they don't know what am I going to do in life? I never had ever that question because I wanted to not only to be a musician, I wanted to be a conductor.
Why because my father was a conductor. I loved my father.
I think he was having a lot of fun and we're very close to this day.
So it was done.
It was a done deal. I wanted to be a conductor and I never ever wanted to be anything else ever.
To hear more of my conversation with Pavo Yervi go to Here's the Thing dot org. After the break, Rafael PII tells us how he shapes a music program and uses it to take the audience on a journey. I'm Alec bald when and you're listening to Here's the Thing. This is Rafael Piari conducting Schulstakovich's Symphony Number eleven with the San Diego Symphony Orchestra. Maestro Raphael Piari has had a meteoric rise since he won first prize at Denmark's
Malco International Conducting Competition in twenty twelve. I wanted to know how one judges something as misunderstood as conducting in the first place.
Yeah, well, I mean, you know, conducting is a little bit like a voodu scene, so having the competition is a little bit kind of exchange. But I remember my time with Malco. We were forty eight participant during that time and it was going to be through ten days. I remember my only goal it was that maybe I will not get eliminated in the first round, because if I passed to the second round, the competition was going to pay for my hotel. So that was my main
goal in the whole thing. I came from Venezuela, and it's like, I hope I don't get eliminated in the first round. But I mean it was kind of never recking. I remember the first round it was about five minutes different and four completely round with different repertoire the whole thing. There was one of the round that Marselle said like, do not say one word. It is seven minutes with
three different pieces. Show everything with your hands. Then the third round is like actually with one you see rehearse, I mean, not be all of the different participants. Then the fourth round we have a piece that it was written for the competition and we only got score a month before. And then it was the final. So it
was completely different, different, very different kind of experience. And you have this amazing orchestra that the Neish radio, and they will be you're in front of them for a certain amount of time and they will just.
React to what you do or play what the same orchestra that's being conducted by all forty eight people.
Yep. And the report to us it was the pull of music. It was really really really wide. I mean I remember it ran from Malor seven beth Oven four Brams for Bartow Concerto for Orchestra for Jack seven. I mean the amount of music was and the conductor, the resident composer for that, it was Christos Pendetski, so he wrote a piece especially for that. We actually have to premiere in front of everybody. If you made it that far in the competition.
Yeah, Now, soon thereafter you go to Ulster.
Correct, that's correct. Yes.
Now, if I were to say, in some overly simplified way, what would be culturally and climatologically the opposite of Venezuela, the answer would be Ulster.
You can say that easily.
That what happens to Raphael Payari when he shows up in the north of Ireland and you're there for five years?
Correct?
Obviously you leave and travel and gets conduct and do other things. But what was it like to Because I want you to describe to me the same with Ulster as with San Diego, and that's when you arrive. What's the vibe there? What's the audience?
Yeah? I mean it was the first time I went there. The orchestra was fantastic and we have an immedium connection. And the thing is that the audience as well, there are so welcoming and so long, very very much. So it was I remember I went there for a concert to just a Covich piano concerto, opening with rabel Tombo cop and then ending with Firebird Suite, and the conture
was absolutely great. And I remember we have the dinner after the concert and I sat down, you know, okay, it's time to have a stake, let's have a drink. And then the intendent of the orchestra I said like, ah, what do you think if you are going to become a chief conductor? So I thought that she was joking, you know, and it's like, okay, yeah, why not, but okay, let's eat, and this is crazy. Two days later they actually called my agent and asked and they offered. It
was real, the whole thing. And then I came back and I said that, yeah, why not. I mean, the connection with the orchestra was great and the audience was fantastic. However, coming from Venezuela, I already have an accent in English, but their accent is also very hard to understand the way they have it. But it was just fantastic to see this very rainy gray sky all the time, and
I find it really wonderful. I come from Porto la Cruz and we have sun three hundred and sixty five there year, so I was fine with having.
Some gray in the sky. Another of rain, Ireland. I shot a movie in Belfast about three years ago. I had never been there before when we went to the south and I went up to the north for the first time, and.
I loved it. It's dreary, but it's poetically dreary.
It's really very, very very beautiful.
Yeah. Absolutely, And the green with the amount of water they have the green, it has a particular kind of sys that is different from everywhere else. It's just wonderful.
Now I'm going to ask the same thing about Ulster, which is you're the music director. Correct, yes, you're the music director there. But when you go to Ulster, when you go to San Diego and you're growing and your experiences are growing, and then when you arrive in Montreal and they're not going to give the keys to that car to just anybody, you know, you really really are at the big time. Now, what is your involvement in selecting the program. I'm on the board of the Fill
here in New York. They have a music committee, and you know, they want to have discussions with the executive director and people in the committee and members of the staff and the maestro about what's going to be played. How much input do you have, Let's start with San Diego when you go down there, how much input do you have to the program?
Oh? A lot, because I not only program my programs, I also have to overview. Of course, we have a team there, a wonderful team. The CEO with San Diego, Martha Gilmer. She used to be the artistic program of Chicago Symphony for thirty five years, so she is also has the Shorty yeah exactly. She went with Shorty with bar and boint with high thing with bulets with all of them, and motive, and so she had all of this experience. We also have our artistic team altogether, and
we just see it. But the whole thing is, I don't like to just program my program for the sake of programming.
When you see my program my weeks, the ones you're conducting, yeah, the.
One that I'm conducting, But it's actually who how are we taking the audience into this kind of journey and this kind of voyage, And it's very important the many different things that let's say, the sound that I am looking the orchestra to develop more so that this also had to do with the report that you have, but not everything needs to be about that. We also need to be appealing for the audience and the people what they are, our supporters that are going to be there.
So normally what I do is just look at the last twenty years, twenty five years, what they have been doing, what is lacking, and what this needs to be doing. Also as well with what is my core repertoire and what I think that the orchestra needs to develop or explore or bring back. So yeah, it's a lot, but those conversations are really really fun and they are ongoing for a long time. I remember the first time with San Diego. We started a conversation at ten in the
morning in Aspen and it ended at seven pm. I was even texting math when I was to the airport going to another orchestra. How about we do this and this, and then we go back and sit again for another six hours. Then Martha went to Berlin. We have another two days from ten to twelve pm just talking and just trying to put the next five years of what do we want to do and what do we want to orchestra to go and how do we dream and make try to have all the things together. So yeah,
the input is quite big. I have to say.
Well, also, I'm wondering whether it be in San Diego. I know that not all the great ensembles are created alike in terms of their funding. Some of them have lots of endowments in cash and some of them not so much. And I'm assuming that you, as the music director, are called upon, especially when you're young and vital like you. You know, you're not a blomstat who's ninety two years old. They're not going to roll him out for the cocktail
party maybe before the show. But for a young, energetic guy like you, are you pressed upon to participate in development and fundraising with the organization?
Well, I think it is very important, of course, because the phone raising what is the phone raising for to be able to make the dreams that we have happen? So sometimes we have some things. But I have to say that they are very smart how the way they do it. They don't do it too much, and they do it in a way to use that relationship. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.
Now, now when you're in San Diego, it's not one of the major venues use but they have a great, great tradition down there, don't they.
Yeah, yeah, indeed. And one of the things that is wonderful with San Diego is that I'm arriving into this period of time for the orchestra and the city that is actually having like a like a big push. It's a wonderful time to happen. I mean, we just opened this beautiful outdoor venue, the Raady Sheil, and it's raady yeah yeah, and it's by the bay. I mean, it's San Diego has one of the best climates in the
whole world. And then you have this amazing shell surrounded by water with this ridiculously bull sky and then from the stage you could actually see Mexico. I mean, come on, you know, I mean this is this is something that is amazing. Dinner after the show, right yeah, yeah, immediately, and you could have that with maybe a little bit of the quilla or not, but that was that's up to you.
I think you deserve anything you want, quite frankly.
Thank you, thank you. And then you have this and it's not only about that it's beautiful, but actually on stage they put the state of their sound system, so the orchestra could really hear each other very well, and then that is projected into the lawn for the people to have an immersive experience as you will be in an indoor hole. So it's fantastic and the orchestra is playing wonderfully. And now we're about to open reopen because our whole has been into renovation and the orchestra is
sounding great. Well, let me ask you this.
When you signed on for San Diego, did they tell you that Rady was on the on the drawing board? You knew that was coming.
No, I did not. I was already Martha's plan happening with this. But I mean when I arrived there and they showed me the plans, it was amazing. And this is one of the most amazing things. We have a wonderful one of the patrons there, when I was very fairly new in there, he asked me what the orchestra needed, and I said, like the hole that we're playing in its own work. Because the musicians it will be better.
They will even the orchestra. WI was going to a different stut of if you have a Libit Burtter hole, and he brought some people actually the architects and an accoustician that did Geffen Hole. They are the one doing the renovation in our hole and we're going to be opening in November. So this is where this is in San Diego. So you're still working with them.
Oh yeah, are you in the transition phase? Now? Are you doing in that and you in that scene where you're slowly exiting San Diego to go to Montreal.
No, not at all, actually because.
Both at the same time.
Oh yes, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
You are the actual music director, both simultaneously.
Yep, yeah, yeah, this is my first I just extended my contract in San Diego for four years, and this is my first year in San Diego, and this is my first year in Montreal for my content in Montreal. My first country in Montreal is start for five years. Yeah.
You don't really like to have time off, do you?
Well? I mean, I'm.
Joking up to now an important question for my listeners, because of course I've been to Spack with Charlie. I've then to tangle Wood countless times. I've been to Ravinia, Hollywood Bowler obviously. I mean, I've spent to some of the outdoor venues that are really, really beautiful. Well, if you're not in Carnegie Hall, if you're not in Separence Hall, if you're not in one of the great halls around the world and you're outside, what adjustments do you need to make in your work?
Well, it depends. Sometimes there are things depending how is the outdoor venue. There are some of them that they have a wonderful setup. And this is for Instagware. San Diego is absolutely world World War class because now our door venue there has the mayor sound system on stage, so we actually play on stage as if we were
in an indoor venue. We do exactly the same. We could go into the softer dynamic to the loudest and provosts and yeah, because then they actually get that into the mics and that is what's coming out on the lawn, so they got it right. Yeah. Absolutely, it's amazing. You'll forget that you are outdoors until all of us a sudden there's a helicopter going by. Or are party bold right?
I was gonna say, Maestro Raphael Piari, if you're enjoying this episode, don't keep it to yourself, Tell a friend and be sure to follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. When we return, Raphael Paiari shares how a good pairing with an orchestra is like falling in love. I'm Alec Baldwin and this is here's the thing. This is more of the San Diego Symphony performing Shostakovich's Symphony Number eleven in G minor,
conducted by my guest today, Maestro Rafael PIII. Between his music director position with the San Diego Symphony and constant travel across the globe working with the world's greatest orchestras, Rafael Piari's schedule is typically jam packed. When the Montreal Symphony came calling amidst an already hectic time in Piari's career, I was curious how the pairing came to be.
Well, it was kind of funny, let's say, because I had a concert with them in September twentuthan eighteen. I had a concert with them. I wasn't bided as a just guest conductor. You know. Maybe my manager was aware that they were looking for a music director. I was not. I just went there to make music to one of the world class orchestra and I was very happy that I was going to do that. And it's very funny because I few months back, I was just announced in
San Diego. So I went to Montreal my first week with them, and when I finished, I flew to San Diego to do the press conference of what was going to be my first season. It was fairly at the very beginning of their search. The chemistry with the orchestra was phenomenal. I remember we did a program of schombervcletten Acht, mox Art biolin Concerto number three with their concert master as a soloist, and then Beethoven number three. That was
a program we did that. It was great, audience was fantastic. I left, I went to San Diego. Then I have I was still in Belfast. I went to do something. They actually, the people from Montreal came to Belfast to visit me and they said that they actually wanted me to come back in July if I would accept and do that, because the orchestra really liked me and they really want me to be again again. And like sure, yeah,
I mean of course in July. Actually, I was happened to be free and I went with them and to do some Tchaikovski and some more and the connection with the orchestra is you got even bigger and it was
even better. And then they they were still in their process and I was just about to start my tenure of MEWSIC director in San Diego, so starting that they went to some of the concerts and then they started talking to me a little bit more serious, like do you see you think that it would be a good idea for you to come back and slid Before I do any of that, I need to see what the orchestra has been doing in the last twenty five years
and things like that, you know. But then COVID hit and they I think I was considered, but they were not finished in their process. And then during COVID times by the end in November, they asked me and said like, look, the orchestra has voted. You're the one that wants to
take this. But no one knew this was embargo and I had to go and please come, you are going to do a concert that was program before a concert I needed to do with them in January twenty twenty one, but I had to do fourteen days of quarantine because of it was COVID time, and I went there. The orchestra had no idea what was going on because everything was secretive. And then they did over Zoom they called
the orchestra. But that was on January sixth of twenty twenty one, so the world in this side was kind of going through a rumble, and in there they were about to get a new lockdown. So the orchestra was a little bit afraid that that meeting was going to be to give some bad news. And actually when they said that it was made, the whole thing changed, and then we start having rehearsal and we did concert that
weekend and then it was a lockdown. But I was already there for fourteen days, so we can go for the next ten days. It was like when you get to know somebody and you'll fall in love on the first time. That kind of happens.
Now once you'd assume maybe, or I'm going to assume that when you become the music director of something like Montreal, you don't come walking in there and meet them on the first day. You've guests conducted there before.
Correct, Yet you have a bit.
Of a sense and a feel for them and they for you, so it's not like a blind date when you show up there to become the boss. You've been around them and you got a taste of how they do things with the various ensembles that you have been the director of or you've guest conducted. Someone once told me violin's violin, and everybody that has a chair in a major symphony orchestra who plays the violin among the greatest violin players in the world. But for you, I'm
wondering for you, did you have a prejudice? Did you have a leaning because of you being a French horn player? Do you listen more acutely to the horns.
Not particularly altro. When I go into an orchestra, especially for the first time, it's all about let's see how the sound of the orchestra reacts to my beat, and let's see what we can do together. And it depends. Every orchestra has a specificity and that there's something that is different and with everybody. And yet it will be see how with the chemistry that would happen on the stage, how much it could be bent. Or it's like a
dancer party. You know how much how fast you can do and how you can go from one place to the other, make a twirl, And it's just all about that kind of trust happening. But I will not say that I will only hear the horns, but I do understand them and I know that being a solo horn myself, I know that we never want to crack an oe, so I know what is in there. And there's many conductors in the past that will give the evil eye to the honk when something would happen, and I know
that's not what you're aiming for. You do they literally give the evil eye? Oh my god, there's a clip of Carboom doing beth Oven seven and there's a crack in the horn and he just looked at the guy and just like it's terrible. Look up YouTube car Bomb Bethoven seven. It's crazy, and that happened in the past. Whenever I go to an orchestra, and if the orchestra happen to know that I'm a French one player, they know that I'm actually supported and I am rooting for them. I know the other way around.
You know, I'm wondering in the time we have left in someone in your position, when you're a conductor, is there a path that you seek to improve? Do you seek to change in the work you do in acting? What happens with young actors is they work too hard. They try to find ways to put even inappropriate levels of emotion just to demonstrate that they can do that. It's like, it's almost like juggling. I want to make sure you know, I want you to be very clear
that I can juggle. And what's happening as you go along is you economize and economize and economize, and you do less and less and less, and it's more effective. But my point is is that for you and someone in your occupation and your profession, are there ways you seek to improve? What do you want to improve?
Yeah? Well everything you know in music. This is one of the amazing things, as you know as well with acting, is that no text is the same, even when you have from one place to the other. The same thing happened with all of the music of these amazing composers. So of course you could always dig a little bit,
you know, deeper and deeper. And at the same time, one of the things that it cannot be is that there are sometimes a report to it that you might not be able to understand or do justice if you attack it too early or too young on it, because you will want to sell like, yeah, I can't do this, but yeah, but that's it. Actually, what you're actually achieving from this amazing piece of music is actually what it is, or is just the surface of it. So all the
time we want to keep improving. And the conducting career is a marathon. You cannot think about as the one hundred meters kind of career because then you will be done. You have to really keep going.
Into one short time.
Yeah, and like plumped that. Look he's now ninety two and eighty four. I think it's ninety six actually, and he's still doing it.
It's very old, you know, I mean yeah, but I mean all the different styles. I mean like Gere Kiev and that twitchy hand of his. You see everybody in their style. Who's in front of the beat and who's on the beat right right? I mean I come out here and I'd say if I was a conductor, I would find the difficult to be ahead of the beat. I mean, you have you need to know the sheet music and be able to beat.
Music very well.
And then I and I watch conductors who are ahead of the beat, and I watch conductors who.
Played to the beat. What's the difference.
Why do they choose one or the other.
Well, what do you do? What do you prefer? Yeah, well, the thing is that depends on the orchestra, because there are orchestra that even though you are showing the beat, the sound comes a little bit later. So if you try to adapt the beat to that, the orchestra will keep being a little bit later and never nothing is going to really move. So that is why sometimes you see that the conductor is actually ahead of the beat
and it's just because the orchestra tried to do them. Yeah, they will play, they will have like an inn orhythm.
Now, much to my surprise to know this, I went to go see Lisa wild or Steeen performing at Kevin Hall the other day and I just learned, this is your wife.
That is correct.
And she just told me when we I think somebody who's a friend of hers, because it's all one big family backstage there, and someone there from New York was telling Lisa, and I think she said she just had the baby five months ago. No, well now a year ago, years ago?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's correct. Yeah.
So the two of you are waving goodbye to each other and kissing each other go by in airports, all the time.
How does that work a little bit? Well, we have what we call marriage schedule meetings that we actually see it with our schedule and we put things together and try to see because we have a rule we do not want to be apart from each other more than two weeks at a time. That is how we might have. Yeah, and sometimes you have to break it, but we try to make it. If we are going to break it, it will be like every eighteen month or two years or something like that that we maybe will break it
that way. And we just tried to put everything like this. And we have two daughters now, I mean the latest one is one year old and our oldest is actually seven years old.
I was one of the people at the Philharmonic years ago because I've been doing this with him for a while now. I've been on the board and I've been their announcer on public radio for years. And you know, eventually we presented because I was very excited about the Live to Picture movie program. And our program is called the Art of the Score. It's been enormously successful. It's a real money maker for them. I'm wondering, have you done any live to picture up there?
I have not but in San Diego, I mean not myself, but we do program it. Actually, yes, well.
I want to do Live to Picture with you. I'm going to come up to Montreal.
We'll do Live to Picture. Sounds good absolutely, San Diego and Montreal both.
Let me just finish by saying beyond thank you and beyond thank you from giving us some of your very very limited free time. I just want to say that when I saw you there at Carnegie Hall and I said, this guy is the next great conductor in the ensemble universe.
Thank you.
I mean you lit the place on fire. Everybody with nuts supplauding. They loved you. They loved the piece, and your energy and variet and your passion and your discipline. I mean, you have everything just coming together in this unique package. Everything isn't anybody like you out there right now, you know.
Oh, thank you, You're very kind.
My thanks to conductor and music director Rafael Piire. We leave you with the adageetto from Mahler's Fifth Symphony. Rafael Piari conducts the Montreal Symphony Orchestra
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